The marketing function for every business has always assumed the shape of a battle between the salespeople and the customers. Ever since businesses came into being, it has been their attempt to create a product or a service for which there is a need and all energies are focused on making customers aware of the existence of the product and create a yearning for it. Conventionally, the battle is with the competitors who occupy the same space with their own products and services. However, modern day businesses have realized that not only do they have to defeat their competitors but also they need to counter the resistance of customers themselves.

[easy-tweet tweet=”An Internet user is averagely exposed to a few hundred advertisements on a daily basis.” hashtags=”ads, tech, online,”]

Just as businesses have defined their goals and adopted various strategies to achieve them, customers to engage in a similar game. Not only are customers obsessed with discovering the best products at the lowest prices but also they are busy in resisting the communication put out by thousands of businesses to win over their attention. According to studies, an Internet user is averagely exposed to advertisements that range from a few hundred to over a thousand on a daily basis. This constant bombardment has made internet users extremely tired of the onslaught on their senses and provoked a backlash. Consequently, while internet marketers are continually attempting to get more attention from their target audiences, the customers themselves have started resisting in a number of ways.

Ad Blocking – the New ThreatAd Blocking AAA

Technically speaking, ad blocking has been around for quite some time; however, some recent trends have thrust it into the limelight. While the PC World magazine featured Adblock Plus, a popular tool for ad blocking way back in 2007 in its list of 100 Best Products, the technology has grown from a merely handy tool used by the tech-savvy to one that now poses a massive headache for online advertisers all over the world. According to a PageFair-Adobe study, in 2015 there were 198 million active users of ad blockers, an amazing 41% spurt over the previous year. It is estimated that online marketers lost close to $22 billion due to this technology in just 2015. Not only did the trend continue in 2016, but also the technology came to be used in web browsing on mobiles too. Currently, the population of smartphone users using ad blockers is estimated to be in excess of 400 million and rising fast with Apple deciding to allow ad blocking on its devices.

Apart from online publishers, ad blocking is severely affecting the fortunes of advertisers too. Not only is there less traffic on their sites due to the blocking of the ads but also they continue to be billed for the blocked ads because the technology resides on the devices of the users and comes into play after the ads have been served. Thus, advertisers are in a painful situation of paying for advertisements that their target audiences will never get to see.

Can SEO Come to the Rescue?

SEO that is already quite valuable becomes even more so in this context for businesses that also resort of paid advertising to generate traffic to their site. While the number of users using ad blocking tools is rising fast, even those who are not using these tools are learning to avoid and ignore the advertising, which effectively renders them blind to advertising efforts. In such a scenario, businesses need to improve their organic search results as much as they possibly can with well-focusedSEO techniques rather than paid advertising, according to the head of a leading SEO company Mumbai.

Offsite SEO

Offsite SEO encompasses an assortment of methods that enables better ranking of the site on search engines. The technique is largely built around backlinks. Organic search engine rankings can get a large boost when a site can get links from other sites that have an authority in the niche in which the site is operating. This makes them less reliant on paid advertising for traffic generation. Guest posting is a good initial step to take if you do not have a strategy for link building in place. When you post articles on sites that operate in a related area you give them free content and in turn you are helped with a backlink and valuable exposure to the site’s audience. Similarly, you can engage in tactics like blog commenting, directory submissions, and social media optimization to generate backlinks that will get you more traffic and enable you to build your brand.

Onsite SEO

Onsite SEO not only improves the visibility of your site on the major search engines but also serves to attract and engage visitors in a way that is best suited for you. Onsite SEO revolves around useful and original content, title tags that are optimized, and Meta descriptions that are attractive to search engines. While title tags and Meta descriptions will help you to get noticed in the crowd, good quality content will help nurture and grow your audience.

Conclusion

Rapid changes in internet technology are changing the behavior of both customers and marketers radically. Even as the internet is becoming all pervasive, both businesses and customers are adopting techniques and tools that help them to stay on top. While ad blocking is increasingly on the rise, good SEO techniques can help marketers and customers find each other for best results.

David Wicks is a database administration expert.
He is also a data migration consultant with years of experience on the job. He recommends the Flosum data loader/migrator available at http://www.flosum.com/salesforce-data-migrator/ to all his clients as they plan for the data migration task.